Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain

by George Edmund Street

The nave remains to be described; and to do this well and adequately, it is necessary to use, not indeed many, but certainly strong, words. Guillermo Boffiy, master of the works, might well cling fondly to his grand scheme, for his proposal was not less, I believe, than the erection of the widest pointed vault in Christendom. Such a scheme might be expected to meet then in Spain, as it most certainly would now in this country,[327] a good deal of criticism, and many objections, on the score of its impracticability; and it is to the honour of the Chapter that they had the good sense to consult experts and not amateurs as to the steps to be taken, and then, having satisfied themselves that their architect was competent to his work, that they left it entirely in his hands.

The clear width of this nave is 73 feet, and its height is admirably proportioned to this vast dimension.[328] It is only four bays in length; each bay has chapels opening into it on either side, and filling up the space between the enormous buttresses, whose depth from the front of the groining shaft to their face is no less than 20 feet. Above the arches which open into the side chapels is a row of small cusped openings, corresponding with those which form the triforium of the choir; and above these are lofty traceried clerestory windows. The groining-ribs are very large and well moulded. At the east end of the nave three arches open into the choir and its aisles; and above these are three circular windows, the largest of which has lost its tracery. And here it is that the magnificence of the scheme is most fully realized. A single nave and choir, all of the same enormous size, would have been immeasurable by the eye, and would have been, to a great extent, thrown away; here, however, the lofty choir and aisles, with their many subdivisions, give an extraordinary impression of size to the vast vault of the nave, and make it look even larger than it really is. In short, had this nave been longer by one bay, I believe that scarcely any interior in Europe could have surpassed it in effect. Unfortunately, as is so often the case among those who possess the most precious works of art, there is now but little feeling in Gerona for the treasure it possesses in this wondrous nave, for the stalls and Coro have been moved down from their proper place into the middle of its length, where they are shut in and surrounded by a high blank screen, painted in the vulgarest imitation of Gothic traceries, to the utter ruin, of course, of the whole internal perspective. It would be a grand and simple work of restoration to give up here, for once, the Spanish usage, and to restore the stalls to the proper choir. I say “restore,” because it is pretty clear that they could not have been in the nave when they were first made, inasmuch as this was in A.D. 1351, sixty-six years before its commencement. A deed still remains in the archives of the cathedral, by which we ascertain this fact, for by it a sculptor from Barcelona agreed, on June 7th, 1351, to make the stalls at the rate of 45 libras of Barcelona for each.[329] The detail of some parts of the woodwork is exceedingly good, and evidently of the middle of the fourteenth century, so that it is clear they are the very stalls referred to in the agreement. There is ample length in the proper choir for them, and they must have been moved into the nave in unwise obedience to the common modern Spanish arrangement, which was certainly never more entirely unfortunate and destructive of effect than it is here.

It will be seen, by reference to the Appendix, that though the architects consulted were fairly unanimous as to the possibility of building the single nave, they were by no means so in their recommendation of it as the best plan. The general feeling seems to have been decidedly adverse to it; and we may assume that the Chapter decided on it partly because it was already commenced, and partly because it promised to be a cheaper plan than the other. There seems also to have been great dread on the part of the Chapter of interfering in any way with the wall which now forms the east end of the nave, for fear lest, when it was cut into for the introduction of the respond of the nave arcade, the whole should give way.

Paschasius de Xulbe, one of the architects questioned, gives the valuable answer, that if the nave is of triple division in width, the groining of the choir must be raised in order that it may correspond in its measurements to its third; from which it is pretty clear that he spoke of a then recognized system of proportioning the height to the width of a building.

Guillermo Sagrera, master of the works at St. John Perpiñan, tells us, in his answer, that the choir was originally built with the intention of having a single nave; and this will account for the otherwise unintelligible finish of its western wall, which it is clear, from the tenour of all the answers, was not prepared for any arches in the nave. I am not certain indeed whether we are not to assume, in reading the questions asked by the Chapter, that the Romanesque nave was itself of the same plan and dimensions; and the vast width of the old nave of Toulouse Cathedral—sixty-three feet—affords an example, at no great distance from Gerona, of the fact that architects, even so early as the beginning of the thirteenth century, were not afraid to propose and execute works on so unusual a scale.

I will not quote farther from the answers of the architects, because they well deserve to be read in detail; but it is a satisfaction to be able to say that their conviction of the practicability of the work has been amply justified, inasmuch as, even to the present day, there is scarcely a sign of a settlement or crack throughout the entire building.

It is difficult to express a positive opinion as to the original intention of the architect in regard to the design and finish of the exterior of this part of the church. The gable walls have been altered, the roofs renewed, and the original termination of the buttresses destroyed. At no time however, I think, can it have looked well. The position is charming, on the edge of a steep, rocky hill falling down to the river, and girt on its north side by the old many-towered city wall; yet with all these advantages it is now a decidedly ugly work, and the nave looks bald, and large out of all proportion to the subdivided, lower, and over-delicately-treated choir. On the west side the whole character of the church is Pagan;[330] and I well remember the astonishment with which, when I had climbed the long flight of broad steps which leads to the western door, I looked down the stupendous interior, for which I had been so little prepared!

The effect is not a little enhanced by the dark colour of the stone, which has never been polluted by whitewash; but there are some defects. The want of length has already been noticed; the entire absence of stringcourses inside is not pleasant; and the lowering of the arches into the chapels in the second bay from the west wall, where there are three in place of the two in each of the other bays, breaks the main lines of the design very awkwardly. The mouldings too, as might be expected in work of so late a date, are nowhere very first-rate, though they certainly retain generally the character of late fourteenth-century work.